In South Africa, a research group at the University of Cape Town is preserving heritage sites using technology.The Zamani Project was founded in 2004 and has since documented more than 200 heritage structures and pieces across 65 sites in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. After visiting and researching a site extensively, the team translates the data into spatial products, animations and virtual tours that not only preserve the history at these sites against time and age but makes them accessible to those who would not otherwise be unable to get to them. New technologies like drone imagery and the use of laser scanners are impacting the work greatly optimising for precision and higher quality imagery according to founder Emeritus Professor Heinz Rüther.
Digital archives are critical.
Last year, we reported about the state of Nigeria’s National Archives and its crumbling state. “Some are brittle and disintegrating before our eyes, and there’s not much we can do due to lack of funds,” a staff said at the time. Unfortunately, with lack of local effort a preservation, receiving help internationally can mean loss of sovereignty over digitised records, a case of having to chose between the devil and the deep blue sea.
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